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Friday, August 29, 2014

I didn't until Primo identified one for me!Right now Primo's special interest is in any and all creatures that live on this planet, specifically he's into the ocean and everything that lives in it.

We have 4 social worker home visits a month right now and he is always impressing the social workers with his knowledge of all things in the sea. He shows them his Narwhal, and knows the difference between a Sea Lion and a Fur Seal and a Walrus. He LOVES to watch ocean documentaries. He can identify 3-4 different types of dolphins!

One of his favorite activities is to have me pull up videos and photos of sea creatures on my computer. Last week was the first time he just asked for fish photos and not a specific fish or animal. So I pulled up a photo of some weird looking fish and wondered out loud about what the funny looking fish was?

"It's a Humphead Parrot Fish" Primo cried out joyfully! I burst out laughing. All of the past week, at any old time, Primo will yell out "Humphead Parrot Fish!" and I will laugh again. He's so proud of himself. He thinks he knows the best joke in the world.

Monday, August 25, 2014

I'm not sure if I mentioned here on the blog that I have been writing letters to Primo's first Mom and Dad. This has been going well and the letters have been positive and informative.Before I started writing I set up a PO Box in a neighboring town.Let me backtrack a little. In my area parents whose children are taken into foster care are allowed to know where their children are being cared for, more specifically, the bio parents have the address of the foster parents. In Primo's case, and in the cases of his brothers, this was not thought to be safe for the foster families, so our addresses were withheld from all documents and not given to Primo's bio parents. Despite this Mike and I developed a mostly positive relationship with Primo's parents. There were some low points during emotional times, for example, when Primo and his older brother's goal was changed from reunification to adoption by foster parents. However over all it was a good relationship.After termination I began exchanging letters with Primo's first Mom. I have saved all of these letters in a binder for Primo.Primo's first Mom and I came to the mutual decision that after Primo's adoption was finalized we would meet up for a visit.This brings us to today. We are now waiting on a finalization date and I'm still feeling it is not a good idea for Primo's first parents to have our address or phone number. I've seen first hand the stress this has caused for Primo's older brother's foster Mom. She has changed her number and moved so things are smoother now, but it was stressful and dramaful before she took these steps.I have been thinking about google voice for a long time, but quite frankly felt overwhelmed by even the thought of trying to figure out this technology.A few months ago I read this blog post. The description of how it all worked made google voice seem doable to me for the first time.So last week I had a few hours of free time to tackle google voice, and that's about how long it took me to work it all out. I will add that I also downloaded the google voice app for my smart phone. The first one I downloaded didn't work correctly, it didn't sync up to my google voice account on my computer. Once I had the correct app for my phone I could do everything from my phone: call, text and email to Primo's first parents (when I'm ready), I tested it all out with my kids.Now I'm ready to have more contact with Primo's parents once the adoption is finalized, and that feels good.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Now that we've completed everything on our end to make Primo's adoption happen I sit and wait and feel a little sad.I didn't expect to feel this way. I'm feeling sad that Primo will be growing up apart from his 3 brothers. All three of us (the adoptive families) have decided to try and get the boys together once a month.

We missed a month or two, but over all we've had fun getting together quite often. The way all of the kids and their siblings birthdays spread out over the year gives us lots of opportunities for parties and getting together almost every month.